


He's still scared.

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, Issues with overly emotional dead guys, M/M, Panic Attacks, Paranormal AU, Relationship Problems, ghost!Kankri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:38:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas. You murder ghosts with Sollux and then get paid for it, and you like it that way.</p>
<p>His name is Kankri. His touch is as cold as his attitude, but you just can't seem to get rid of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your new job sucks.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never actually posted anything on this site before, so let's see what happens. 
> 
> Relationship-wise in this fic: Sollux and Karkat sort of have a thing going on, and then Kankri comes along and Karkat's priorities are muddled.

Your name is Karkat Vantas. 

You murder ghosts and get paid for it.

Ever since you were a little kid, you have been able to see the spirits of people who were supposed to be deceased. They’re barely there, pretty much see-through traces of whoever they used to be. The majority of them don’t actually look human, and their physical forms change into whatever it was that they perceived themselves as. 

Let’s be honest, if a dead guy can’t find the way out of the living world, he must think he’s pretty fucked up.

You have seen so many of these things that you hardly even care anymore, and you’ve decided through observation that they have no sense of human emotion left in them besides rage. You can sort of relate, you think. Over the past ten years of your life, you’ve thought of hundreds of ways to kill these things (double kill?), each way more cruel than the last. You’ve made a sport out of it. It turns out that they’re actually pretty vulnerable underneath all of the lore about them. Sure, they can warp reality sometimes, make furniture and stuff float around, change the temperature… usually simple things like that. Despite this, they’re actually just as easy to harm as they look. Shooting them with a regular gun did the trick unless they were more warped than others. You get hired by people who want you to get rid of them, and you make a pretty good amount of money with this gig. Your “partner in crime” is a lispy kid named Sollux Captor who can’t even say his own name right under those weird canine teeth of his.

You tell your clients that the ghosts move on to the afterlife after you kill them.

It’s a lie.

They just vanish.

You’re just a seventeen year old kid (almost eighteen, mind you) who can see the paranormal and likes a good thrill. To be honest, you don’t give two shits about what happens to those things. Sollux is in it for the profit, and you’re totally okay with that. You’ve been best friends since you were little, even though you tend to shout at each other a lot, it’s with the best intentions.

It’s a cool autumn morning when your phone rings loudly on your nightstand, blurting some obnoxious, stupid song you picked to alert you when your friend was calling. It was a hilarious joke at the time, but suddenly you find yourself regretting it as the high-pitched vocals assault your tired ears.

“ _Sweet little bumblebee, more than just a fantasy…_ ”

You scramble for the cellphone, fingers blindly groping at the wooden surface. You accidentally knock an energy drink off of the counter and it splatters across the wooden floor, and you mutter incoherent insults at nothing in particular.

Finally finding the phone, you flip it open and smash it against your ear, eyes tightly shut. 

“The fuck do you want, Sollux?” you growl, throat dry and crisp from dehydration. You keep your eyes shut and your face contorts with rage, as if in some sort of rebellious gesture.

“I got uth another job,” the other boy responds, and you can hear his fingers tapping busily on a computer keyboard. His lisp goes unchecked when he’s talking to you, and he doesn’t even bother to hide it. “There wath a call earlier thith morning.”

“What do you mean ‘earlier’?” You groan, even though you feel your stomach flip with excitement at the thought of having another job soon. You pull your cellphone away from your face for a moment and open your eyes to send a glare at the time. “Sollux! It’s fucking five AM! There is no earlier!”

“Cool it, KK,” he says, and you can practically hear the shrug in his voice. “They called at four. I wath a generouth kid and let you thleep in.”

“Calm your lisp, I can barely understand what you’re saying!” you snarl, bringing it up just because you know it’s a sensitive topic for him. You can understand him just fine. “Do you ever even sleep, Mr. Hackerpants Shitface?”

“Thometimeth,” he snorts, and you can tell he exaggerated his lisp on purpose. That bastard. “Get your ath over here so I can brief all the mithion thit to you.”

“Come on, we do all of our hunting at night, what’s the point in waking me up early just to talk?” you hiss and massage your forehead, stretching your legs reluctantly. Even though you like giving Sollux a hard time, you’re too excited to get back to sleep now. Plus, a part of you likes actually acting like a good friend, even if you’re an asshole about it.

“Can’t thleep and the coding is getting kinda boring after thtaring at it for, like, theventeen hourth nonthop,” Sollux admits.

“I guess even the most dedicated get bored after a while,” you mutter, stretching your free arm over your head. God, you’re still sore over the last ghost-hunting outing, since Sollux was a total worthless piece of shit and made you go in by yourself. It was harder than usual, too.

“Jutht get over here,” he says, and the line goes dead.

Of course, he hung up on you.

“Fuck you too, buddy,” you mutter, snapping the phone shut and forcing yourself out of bed.

And of course, you step right into the spilt energy drink.

Of-fucking-course.

. . . . . .

As soon as you get into Sollux’s room, you flop down on his stupid bee-print bed sheets and bury your face in his pillow. You’re still tired, even after chugging down five cups of coffee as you got ready earlier.

“Glad to thee you’re making yourthelf at home,” Sollux says sourly, rolling his eyes as he walks straight back to his desk. He pulls out the swivel chair and sits in it, spinning around a few times lazily.

“Just tell me the fucking details,” you mutter, turning your head to glare at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sollux grumbles, reaching towards his printer and pulling out some freshly-printed papers. He examines them quickly to make sure he printed the right thing, and he tosses them to you. They flutter just out of reach, and you begrudgingly sit up to retrieve them from the floor.

“Let’s see,” you sigh, glancing at the rough summary Sollux typed out for you. “Some couple in a big-ass mansion is having ghost issues on the top floor. Casual shit, floating tables and stuff. Apparently there’s a lot of unidentified screaming- ugh, this must be one of those loud ones. Let’s pack earplugs so we don’t have a repeat of the fucking banshee episode. And…” You pause, quirking an eyebrow and giving your friend a skeptic look. “…okay, there are floating weapons? What the hell?”

The hacker shrugs, since apparently he was going back to his coding for a moment. He speaks while throwing you a backhand glance, fingers still gliding over the keyboard. “Apparently the people like hunting. They thaid that they tried hiding their gunth and trapth, but thomehow they keep getting around the houthe. Kitchen kniveth too, I think.”

You wince slightly. “Urgh. Sounds dangerous.”

“Ithn’t that the kind of thing you like?” Sollux smirks at you from behind those stupid 3D glasses, lowering them slightly to show his weird-as-hell blue and brown eyes.

You can’t help but smile wryly. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

He gives a coy wink before returning to his screen. “Love you too, KK.”

“Motherfucker.”

. . . . . .

You’re kind of surprised that it took all day to pack your bag for that ghost hunt, but you know that in this case it’s impossible to over-prepare. You’ve got to be ready for anything, considering the circumstance. You pull on a bullet-proof vest and toss a similar one onto Sollux’s lap as you climb into the passenger seat of your friend’s dumb yellow truck. 

“Wear the damn thing. I don’t want to lose your ass over a stupid money-making gig,” you snarl, zipping it up halfway and leaving it that way.

“I’ll put it on when we get there,” he responds, though you can see him smirking smugly at you showing concern for him. He backs the vehicle out of the driveway and you guys are quickly on your way to the mansion Sollux had described. He knows exactly where he’s going, but you don’t really care, so you turn on the radio and settle back into your seat as you find a station that you’re okay with.

You think you probably fell asleep, since you jump and hit your head on the truck’s low roof as Sollux elbows you back into consciousness. 

“Fffffuck,” you growl, rubbing your forehead. “Are we there?”

“No, I jutht thtopped in the middle of the road,” he speaks with a deadpanned expression, unreadable behind his glasses.

You’re silent for a minute.

“…of courthe we’re there, fucktard,” Sollux groans with exasperation, jabbing you with his sharp elbow again. That kid is made of all angles, you swear. 

You growl, kicking the door open and slamming it shut behind you when you get out. You lean against the door, not really caring about the handle jabbing into your side as you sigh, rubbing your head again. You have a couple of minutes while Sollux unloads the truck.

Your eyes quickly become accustomed to the dark, and you look up at the mansion to see exactly what you’re up against.

Your jaw drops.

No.

No no no no no nooooo.

You close your eyes again, covering them with your hands. You must be wrong, you’ve got to be. This is not the same place. You will the sight to change and go away, to turn into some other fancy old building.

You open your eyelids again, peeking out from between your fingers tentatively.

Nothing has changed.

You cry out in frustration, slamming your head against the vehicle’s trunk and sprawling across it uselessly.

“Why’re you throwing a fit over there?” Sollux questions, staring at you from the other side of the truck.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“What? What’th the big deal?” Your friend stares at the mansion, shrugging his shoulders. “Nothing seems out of the ordinary to me.”

“Sollux,” you hiss, grabbing the collar of his stupid shirt, pulling him close, and staring at him right through those stupid 3D glasses.

“This is my old house.”


	2. It seems so familiar

“I still don’t get what the big deal is.”

You shoot Sollux a rather annoyed glare, and you can’t help but notice that his lisp is barely present. Of course, when he’s being serious, he finds a way to force it down most of the way.

“It’s a _pretty fucking big deal_ ,” you hiss, fingers finding the handle of the car door. It comforts you to think that you can leave whenever you feel like it. “You know… the first paranormal stuff I ever saw?” You jab a finger at the mansion, then quickly pull it back to your chest as if you’ve been burned. “ _It was in there_.”

He stares at you blankly. “…so you’re trying to tell me that you’re emotionally traumatized from this thing?”

You let out a noise of frustration and glare daggers at your friend, scowling. “Remember how I told you that there was some weird ghost activity right before my parents died?”

“So _this_ is where you lived,” Sollux muses, eyeing the house with interest. “Must’ve been pretty damn rich. Anyway, you think this has something to do with your parents’ deaths?”

“Well, obviously!”

“Maybe we can use this to our advantage.” His face is calm and calculating, and you can see his eyes flick around beneath his glasses. “Considering that no one else in the house was hurt, it can’t be all that bad. Come on, tell me everything you know about this, don’t leave me in the dark.”

You grumble incoherently and then manage to form a response. “I don’t really know that much. I was just a little kid. I just know that some guy came into the house for the night because he had nowhere else to go. I only saw him for a couple of minutes, but he looked pretty beat up. He paid a rent and went up to the attic and that’s the last I saw of him.” You rub your forehead, sighing. “I got up the next day and there were police everywhere. I tried asking where the dude was, but they just said he was ‘gone’. I pretty much take that as a hint that he died.”

“Huh,” Sollux murmurs, staring at the house. “So I’m going to assume that’s the dead guy in there. Did you get a name or anything?”

“Nah, I’ve never been the sort of guy that actually cares about that shit.”

“Whatever,” Sollux shrugs. “I gueth it doethn’t matter.” And of course, the lisp is back. He’s told you before that he really hates forcing it to go away since it’s so difficult to control. It’s not easy dealing with a speech impediment. To be honest, you think he sounds better when he actually talks like himself, lisp and all. “Tho what happened in there that freakth you out tho much?”

“It was like the fucking Exorcist in there,” you deadpan.

“You were jutht a little kid, KK. Your mind’th exaggerating.”

“Is not!”

“Come on, that thing’th been in there for, what… more than ten yearth now? Gotta get rid of it ath thoon ath pothible. What happened to your overthized head?”

“I’m not going in there,” you growl, leaning against the vehicle as if it will protect you.

“Then I’ll go by mythelf,” he snorts, putting on the vest you handed him earlier and pulling a gun out of the pack he slung over his shoulder. “And I’ll get all the pay, too.”

Your jaw goes slack, and you scramble around the truck towards him. “No way! You can’t go in there by yourself, asshole! You’ll get hurt!” You don’t even care about the payment. You are dead serious.

“Tho you’re coming?” Sollux asks smugly, smirking with satisfaction as he shoves a rather-large weapon into your arms.

You’re silent for a minute, and then give him the ugliest glare you can manage.

“I hate you so fucking much, Sollux.”

. . . . . . . .

The couple who owns the house left you the keys, so you open the door to the house as quietly as possible. They aren’t home tonight, and they’re staying with friends for a while due to the fact that they would rather not die.

You glance around cautiously. You get an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, since the house looks exactly the same as when you left it, except with new furniture this time. You find yourself holding your breath as you step your way into the dark house with Sollux close behind, your gun at the ready. 

It’s completely silent.

That bothers you.

Giving precautionary glances around the hall as you begin tip-toeing up the stairs, you decide that it’s probably a good idea to sneak up on the spirit if you can. It seems dormant right now… maybe sleeping? Or whatever it is the ghost equivalent of sleeping is.

You don’t even know if something like that exists. You just kind of kill them.

You hear a squeaking sound coming from down the hallway and pause, gesturing for Sollux to come up beside you. You prepare yourself, taking a quiet breath and peeking into the room.

It’s just a rocking chair. It’s empty, but it’s still rocking back and forth in a kind of lonesome way.

Fucking creepy.

“That’th from a draft thomewhere, ithn’t it?” Sollux murmurs, and he pulls his glasses up so that they rest on the top of his head. They may be prescription, but his eyes aren’t that bad and the lenses make it hard to see in the dark.

“Probably,” you whisper, and you clamp a hand over his mouth, earning you a glare. “Shut the fuck up, we’re gonna get-“

You scream somewhat girlishly as you are yanked to the side and slam against the wall.

When your eyes come back into focus, you’re staring at a reflection of yourself in a shiny piece of metal. You’re having a difficult time breathing, due to your collar being suddenly tight on your throat.

“KK!” You hear Sollux exclaim, and he hurries to you, grabbing the handle of the metal and trying to pry it out from the wall.

The sudden adrenaline rush fades slightly to allow you to figure out what happened.

A knife had flown at you, catching you by the collar of your shirt and pinning you against the wall.

Sollux curses bitterly, the knife finally breaking out from the wall and falling to the ground with a clank. He reaches forwards and touches your shoulder, making sure that your balance isn’t screwed up.

“Something tells me that wasn’t a draft,” you growl, slapping his hand away.

He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s completely cut off when a buzzing sound fills the air. Glancing up, you find the lights to be flickering, sparks flying from the bulbs and skittering across the tiled ground like insects. You suddenly come to the realization that you’re in a rather large kitchen, and the utensil drawers are rattling as they begin to slide outwards to spill across the ground, knives and all. The class of a grandfather clock shatters from the corner, and you snarl as the tables are overturned.

Your gun is out and loaded in a second, only slightly slower than Sollux is. 

“Looks like our little friend found us out,” you say, aiming the gun around the room as you look for something to shoot at. You haven’t seen a trace of the dead guy yet, and it’s sort of getting on your nerves. You don’t like being vulnerable like this.

You hear a voice.

It’s really loud, much louder than you’d be able to muster, and it echoes around with some surreal edge. 

The voice sobs and cries and yells, and you can tell that it’s throwing a temper tantrum. It tickles something at the back of your consciousness, and you are almost positive that this is the voice of that guy you had only seen for a brief moment before he had retreated up to the attic so many years ago.

You frown and nod at Sollux, stepping towards the exit of the room while watching the utensils warily. They are disoriented and even though they’re obviously after you and your friend, they aren’t controlled with precise movements. They bounce around and rattle uneasily against the ground, a few of them floating around in the air, looking for a target.

You shoulder yourself and your friend out of the way of one of them, taking off down the hallway.

“Over there,” Sollux instructs, leading the way down a new hallway. He’s following the sound of the yelling, finding it a lot easier than you would be able to. You trust his judgment, even though he can’t see their physical forms as clearly as you can.

“It’s here,” you mutter, and you rush into the next room.

You can immediately tell that this was your old bedroom when you were little.

The déjà vu is overwhelming, but you can’t concentrate on that right now. You have a job to do.

Any furniture, antiques, and pretty much everything else this room had is destroyed and littered around the room in pieces. Sparks fly viciously from snapped wires, water dripping from a broken pipe in the ceiling. Apparently this is also where the ghost is keeping all of his real weapons, since you quite nearly step into the teeth of a foot trap. You curse at the owners of this mansion for keeping stupid fucking things like this inside of their household. Who even _does_ that? 

Guns float around the room in a random, fast array of weapons. Radios and televisions are piled in stacks across the floor, blaring static and whatever tidbits of voice they can pick up.

It’s pretty much complete chaos in here.

Above it all, you can see that really high window you always gazed at. As a young kid, you had always wanted to sit in that window, but you could never quite jump high enough to crawl onto the ledge. It has a perfect view of the rest of the town, and even though it’s not much to look at, beyond it is a mountain range that glowed the brightest of colors in the fall.

You were tall enough now to get to it by hoisting yourself up on the ledge if you ever wanted to, you realized.

However, the spot was already occupied.

The first thing you notice is this guy’s familiar oversized red sweater, and you remember seeing that on him when you saw the boy before his death. He has black skinny jeans and many-sizes-too-large red shoes, the laces untied and spilling over the ledge, floating in an unseen breeze. He’s holding his face in his hands, and you can’t help but stare at the sickly grey hue of his skin. His wavy black hair wafts across his fingers, getting tangled in them as he grasps tightly to his forehead. 

You spot an odd pair of horns poking out from his mass of untamed hair. They are small and nubby, curving slightly towards the center of his scalp. They’re colored like candy corn, and you quietly wonder if he was obsessed with sugar when he was alive or something. He looks maybe two years older than you, but you can’t really tell from this angle.

His shoulders heave with every noisy sob, his skinny frame wracked with shivers. You can hear him speaking almost-words, but to be honest…

You don’t care.

You fire a bullet at the wall of the room, just to get his attention.

“Hey, Sweater! The party’s over here!”

You can practically feel Sollux cringe beside you. He really hates when you treat this kind of thing more like a game than a job, and you _totally_ just destroyed the clients’ property. Frankly, those guys are already going to need to re-do the room anyway, and you think that you may as well have fun. Your panic from earlier has faded into the realization that this can’t be much different than your countless other ghost enemies.

The ghost’s body gives a violent jerk at the sound of your voice, and his crying goes silent. The buzzing of the TVs and radios and wires and whatever else he had gathered goes dead, and it’s like the world has paused.

You can feel yourself holding your breath, wondering what’s going to happen next. Sollux is tense beside you, but you don’t care to glance at him.

The spirit’s face lifts from his hand slowly and he hovers over them for a moment. His back straightens and he turns to look at you, moving with the agonizing slowness of an old, rusting machine.

You’re shocked into silence as you stare into those completely white eyes. They’re so wide that you wonder if they’re stretching his face. His lips are closed tightly, but you can still see red-tinted tear tracks running down his face. His lower eyelids are dark, almost black, as if he has never rested for a single second in his entire life and death combined.

His mouth opens a bit, and you can see that he has his jaws packed with sharp teeth, something you think a shark might have.

The television screens are filled with a light red glow, flickering dully. The radios whisper faint background static, nothing more.

And suddenly, a voice spills from all of the speakers at once, in perfect synchronization with the small movements of the ghost’s lips.

“ _What do you want from me_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kankri has arrived. /throws sparkles


	3. Douchebag Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your life just got a million times worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing these pretty fast, wow. One chapter per day so far. I'm happy with it!   
> Also, I noticed that my chapter notes are kind of getting jumbled sometimes. Please excuse that.  
> Thanks for reading. c;

“That is really fucking creepy.”

Those are the only words that you can manage before you hear a gunshot from one of the weapons, the bullet hitting the doorframe. It was a very narrow miss, only a hair’s width away from your head. Speaking of hair, you’re pretty sure you lost a few of those to that projectile.

There is a clicking sound to your left, and a few of the floating guns shatter to pieces, falling to the floor. Sollux is a pretty sharp shooter, and he has some pretty expensive weapons. You don’t need to look at him to know he can take care of the threats for you.

That means it’s your job to terminate the spirit.

You have a sort of unspoken language with your friend, and you understand every silent word with ease.

You propel yourself forwards, feet slamming against the ground as you leap around a bunch of traps littered around the carpet. It’s fairly easy for someone with trained perception such as yours, and you find it easy to get closer to Sweater.

The grey-skinned ghost stirs as you get closer, swinging his feet over the ledge and holding tightly to the ends of his sweater sleeves, preparing to run away if necessary. The television screens buzz louder, as if in a panic.

You know that’s impossible, though.

Dead people only have rage.

For a split second, you get caught on something sharp sticking out of the floorboards. You nearly trip, but the obstacle explodes into splinters as Sollux fires at it.

For the millionth time, you’re grateful for someone like him on your side.

The ghost jumps down from the ledge, while furiously rubbing the tears from his eyes.

That was a mistake.

You muster up all of your remaining strength, putting it all into these last strides. You speed up to the point that your knees ache in rampant bursts of pain and exertion. 

You manage to get up close to Sweater when he finally looks back up, mouth opening in surprise. You hear the floating weapons clicking as they immediately turn to you.

You jam the barrel of the gun right up against his throat.

“End of the line,” you pant, angling the gun upwards and pressing it against the soft skin right beneath his chin. “You’ve overstayed your welcome, jackass.”

Sweater makes a weird, throaty noise of shock. There isn’t much else he can do, considering that he’s being pressed between a weapon and the wall behind him.

“ _KK_ ,” Sollux hisses, and you take that as a warning. This guy is trying to throw attacks at you from behind that Sollux can’t shoot at without harming you.

“If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you a million times worse,” you mutter to Sweater, pressing the gun harder against his neck.

His fingers scuttle upwards to grip your hands, and it feels like being doused in a pool of ice water. You can tell that he’s shaking, sharp nails digging into your skin.

You can hear a series of clanks as the floating hazards drop to the ground, and Sollux sighs, walking to stand beside you.

“It doethn’t really look all that threatening,” he points out flatly, examining the ghost’s face. “Maybe it biteth, though.” It was meant as a joke, and he glances at you, smiling slightly. “Thee? I told you that you were exaggerating.”

“Oh, shut up,” you scowl, just about to pull the trigger and finish up with this nonsense. Your dignity is feeling pretty bruised right now.

“What makes you think you can kill me?”

You practically jump out of your skin when Sweater actually talks to you. He’s eyeing you carefully, and you can’t really see any emotion on his face anymore.

“What makes you think that I can’t?” You reply loudly, stepping roughly on one of his feet for emphasis. He may be taller than you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be intimidating.

“Hm,” he says nonchalantly, as if he isn’t pinned at gunpoint. “I wouldn’t want to say anything that could be seen as offensive, so I should probably remain silent.”

You go to say something snippy in return, but you stop when Sollux grabs your shoulder.

“What do you want, bee-boy?” you snap, but you stop when you see your friend’s bewildered expression.

“You…” he breathes carefully, eyes wide. “…you’re talking to it.”

You immediately pause as you come to a sudden realization.

You’ve never actually had a legible conversation with a ghost before.

They talk to themselves, they talk to nothing in particular, and they shout nonsense at you sometimes. They never seem to have a grasp on reality, as if they have been programed just to attack and flip out at things. 

Talking to Sweater is just like talking to a regular person.

“I… don’t…” You can’t form a real sentence. You can only stare blankly into the cold eyes of the dead boy.

“ _Please_ get this away from me,” Sweater says, and you can hear a hint of pleading in his voice. He pokes at the gun cautiously, his fingertips still shaking. “I despise being touched.”

You feel a thrill of panic jolt up your spine.

This isn’t possible. He can’t be talking to you, it must be a coincidence. 

This is a trick.

In a moment of adrenaline, you pull the trigger.

Sweater gasps, and you can hear the blood being sucked into whatever ghost-lungs he has. His head slams back against the wall, and he slumps against it, going limp.

You yank your hands back, watching him slide down the wall and onto the ground, leaving a trail of red down the wall.

It’s weird to see a ghost with such human-like blood. _Impossible_ , even.

This guy’s existence is impossible.

You cry out in frustration and confusion, stomping your foot against the ground. Your cheeks are on fire with embarrassment, and you don’t even know why.

It’s like everything you ever thought was a constant among dead people is a complete lie. What you thought you knew was wrong.

Was he really an exception to everything you ever knew about ghosts?

“It doethn’t matter now,” you hear Sollux murmur, and he puts an arm around your shoulders comfortingly. “It’th gone, you killed it.” He shoots a look over at the beaten form of Sweater, waiting for the body to fade away. It usually takes a few minutes, but it really depends on the case.

“I don’t understand!” You yell, wanting to push him away. Instead, you lean into his touch, finding comfort by resting your face in his shoulder. “It doesn’t make any sense! It was like- he was like- like he was an actual _human_!”

Sollux tries to _shh_ you, but it turns into some kind of lispy mess and he gives up with that. “It wathn’t. It’th fine now, KK.”

You want to believe that, you really do.

You hear a tired groan.

It’s definitely not Sollux.

You jerk away from your friend and your eyes immediately glue to the twitching form of the spirit.

Sweater’s arms move up and he grasps his jaw, rubbing it as if he’s trying to work out a muscle cramp. His eyes flutter open, and he eyes his blood-stained jeans wearily.

“That was extremely rude,” he mutters, putting a hand against the wall and trying to pull himself back to his feet.

“ _NO_!”

You act far before you can even begin to think, and to be honest, you really don’t want to think at all.

Your gun is out of your pocket again, and you’re shooting bullets as fast as your fingers can possibly move, the air lighting up with flashes as you fire with no missed shots.

“ _THAT IS FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE_! STAY DOWN, _STAY DOWN_!”

His body convulses, and there’s so much blood that you would be throwing up right now if the circumstances were different.

Sollux reaches out to stop you, but you don’t even slow down, shouldering him away.

You are forced to stop when you run out of bullets.

You hurl the empty weapon to the ground, yelling at nothing in particular. You stand there, breathing heavily as you stare down at the still body in front of you.

You’ve never seen that much human blood splattered across a wall in your life. Weird-colored ghost blood you saw a lot, in practically every color you could think of… but it was never that candy-red before.

You have never hated a color as much as you do right now.

You close your eyes for a moment to re-gain your bearings, fists clenched at your sides.

“Oh god, KK.” You can tell that Sollux is sick to his stomach, but he grabs onto your arm and starts pulling you away as fast as he can. You stumble when you hear some sickening popping noises from where you left Sweater’s body.

“ _What is that_ ,” you say, and it’s more of a statement than a question.

You open your eyes, and you almost scream.

Sweater is already sitting up, patting at the holes in his stupid outfit with a serious frown. 

He’s not even injured anymore.

You can’t speak. Sollux does it for you.

“ _How_?”

“I don’t know the fundamentals,” Sweater says in a ragged voice, but he hits his chest with a fist, coughs, and it goes back to being echo-y. “It just happens.” He sounds almost sad, and he changes the subject without warning. “…Why did you come here?”

You are both silent for a moment, but Sollux is less shaken than you, so he continues doing the talking. “You’re… the ghotht that’th been bothering the rethidenths.”

The spirit’s face turns almost as red as his shirt. “I-I suppose,” he stutters, embarrassment lighting up his features. “I become… panicked… occasionally. It was more comfortable when the house was empty… back then, no one was there to be frightened.”

“You attacked us!” you blurt, still completely bewildered by all of this.

He tugs at the collar of his sweater, standing up slowly. You take notice of the way that he floats just barely off of the ground. “I’m… sorry. I was angry.”

“About what?” Sollux inquires, his voice still cold.

“That is none of your business.” 

Admittedly, you are somewhat intimidated by this more strict side of him. You lean into Sollux’s arm, staying pressed up against him.

“I don’t give a shit about whatever it is,” you snarl, giving a rude glare. “You need to get out of this house and leave these people alone, fucking _sweater man_. I don’t want these people to think we screwed up.”

“I live here,” he announces stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You don’t live here,” you shout, feeling anger boil in your stomach. “I know because I remember when you died, asshole! This was _my_ house!”

Sweater freezes up, mouth opening slightly in surprise. “…oh.” He’s quiet for a moment, examining you. “…were you the little boy? What was it? ...Kitkat?” 

“It’s _Karkat_!” You’re really starting to get fed up with this guy, seriously. “And you’re the douchebag ghost that killed my parents!”

He stares at you with those freakishly wide eyes again, looking flabbergasted. “E-excuse me?”

“Don’t even try that! I know what you did!” You glare viciously, showing all of your hate in a single glance.

“I…” He stops, glancing down at his feet. “…I don’t seem to recall what happened.”

You prepare to verbally assault this asshole, but Sollux stops you by interrupting.

“Look, we jutht need you out of this plathe. Our reputathion kind of dependth on it.”

Sweater stands there for a moment, looking deep in thought. His white eyes are completely unreadable and it’s sort of unsettling. You notice him glance up at you for a moment, before he looks to Sollux and gives him a freaky-ass smile packed with sharp teeth.

“Okay, I’ll leave. I was getting somewhat tired of this place, anyway.”

He walks (floats?) towards you, and you flinch. Sollux’s arm tightens around your shoulders protectively. You both relax a bit when you realize that Sweater is just going past you, not towards you.

He stops beside you for a brief moment, and he’s a lot too close for comfort. You can feel the temperature drop, and you shiver when his breath hits your ear.

“By the way, my name isn’t ‘Sweater’,” he whispers softly, and you can tell that he’s smiling smugly to himself. “It’s Kankri.”

And suddenly, he’s gone.

“Holy shit I hope I never have to look at his ugly-ass face again.”

You say that without pausing, overcome with relief at his absence.

He was fucking terrifying.

“Let’th get the hell out of here,” Sollux announces, pulling you towards the door. “I am tho fucking done right now.”

“Same. I’m going to take a shower, go to bed, and forget this shit ever happened.” You’re very much satisfied with these plans and have full intentions of following through with them.

Sollux sighs, and he frowns slightly. “I’ve got to go make thure my brother ate, forthe him to go to bed, have thomething to eat, and then I can finally follow through with the planth you’re doing.” He rolls his eyes. “You have it tho eathy.” 

You shrug. “I just have an awesome uncle, that’s all.” You and your friend both know that you wish you could help Sollux, but you’re pretty inept at assisting people.

“The Thignless is fucking awethome, KK. I am tho jealouth, you have no idea.”

Yeah, it’s true. The Signless is the best adult you know. He’s your uncle, and you chose to live with him after the death of your parents. He lets you do pretty much anything, but he takes good care of you at the same time, and the fridge is always stocked with your favorite food. And his name? You just started calling him the Signless when you were a little kid, and now pretty much everyone says it. You don’t even know how it started; it’s just the sort of thing that sticks. He isn’t home very often, but he’s a nice guy and you don’t really mind. You like being alone.

“I’m not in the mood to talk about family lives, Sollux,” you sigh, putting up your hand. “Let’s just get out of this hellhole.”

. . . . . . . . .

When you get home, you follow through with most of your plans. You wrack your brain to completely forget about that stupid ghost, but you can’t seem to stop thinking about it.

You try to force yourself not to let it get to you, and you guess it’s not a big deal, anyway.

After all, you’re never going to see that dumbass ghost ever again.

. . . . . . . . .

The next morning, you wake up to a rather loud crash.

Your eyes snap open, and your feet swing off of the couch where you collapsed and fell asleep the night before. You push yourself to your feet, despite the strain it puts on your head when you move too quickly. Your heart pounds in your ears, your eyes searching for whatever made that noise.

Your uncle wasn’t home this week. He was on a business trip.

So… who-

“My apologies,” says a familiar voice, and there is a shuffling sound. “I accidently knocked over a vase. I hope it wasn’t expensive.”

Your head jerks around to look behind you, and you scream.

It’s the douchebag Sweater.

“ _WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE_?!” You yell, grabbing your head and pulling at your hair. You can feel another scream building in the back of your throat, threatening to spill.

Kankri stands up from where he was crouched on the ground, trying to look at the smashed vase that was all over the carpet. 

Your uncle is totally going to kill you.

You can’t help but notice that Kankri can be a lot taller than you when he stands up straight, and he glowers down at you with a demeaning gaze. “I’m making myself at home.”

“ _YOU SAID YOU WERE LEAVING_ ,” you growl, clenching your fists at your sides. You are going to beat him to death _so_ many times.

“Yes, I said I was leaving,” he agrees, staring at you. You really think it’s unnerving.

“… _well_?” You gesture towards the door, giving him an incredulous look.

“Ah, yes.” He nods, but he doesn’t move. He crosses his arms again, completely nonchalant. “I do believe that I will be staying here from this point onwards.”


	4. Yeah, no.

“If you want me to leave so badly, I suppose I can go back to the mansion,” Kankri suggests, watching you pace back and forth. “After all, I only came here as per your suggestion.”

“I did _not_ suggest _anything_!” you screech, slamming your palms against your face for the millionth time. “No way in hell are you going back there, and no way in hell are you staying here!”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Karkat, but I sort of _do_ need a place to stay.” He insists, and you’re pretty sure he just rolled his eyes at you, but you can’t really tell. “I may be deceased, but I’m not fond of the idea of being kicked out. After all, I was in the mansion far before the current owners.”

You breathe through your nose in attempt to calm down, fighting the urge to rip out all of your hair and then flush yourself down the toilet. “Sweater. You are not staying here. No way. You can’t go back to your old place either.” Something snaps in your restraint, and you’re yelling at him again in no time. “I was trying to kill you, asshole! You’re supposed to be gone- zip, zilch, not with those people and definitely not with _me_!”

Kankri seems to brush it off, and you decide that he is the snootiest, most pompous smartass you have ever met. “Your language and mannerisms are highly triggering, Karkat. Not implying that you as a person are of such lewd categories of personality; however I think that there is a large group of persons, human or otherwise, that would find such attitude sickeningly negative. It could cause a chain of negative reactions, or perhaps those of the more impressionable type could catch on to your language. As such, this could continue on through them as they mature and still hold on to this way of speaking, hereby unintentionally teaching their peers to follow in their footsteps. Not to mention that they may become embarrassed when they find out what they were _really_ saying- implying that they didn’t know in the first place and only said these things because you taught them-, and they could begin to take part in the practices of, but not limited to… self-shaming, self-harm, acts of violence, mental disorders, severe anxiety…”

You can’t believe how much this guy can talk. He completely lost you at the first word, and your jaw drops in dismay as you watch him rant about things that you’re pretty sure have nothing to do with what’s going on right now. You just barely met him, but you’re pretty sure you already hate him.

You manage to snap out of the rant-induced stupor, crying out in frustration as he continues to talk despite the interruptions. “Of all of the ghosts in the entire world, I just had to get stuck with a fucking _social justice blogger_!”

He is totally ignoring you, continuing on his nonsense subjects, so you clamp a hand over his mouth. You feel like his breath is going to freeze your fingers off, but you ignore it and growl at him.

“Don’t you dare fucking rant at me. Don’t you _dare_.” You take a deep breath and let it out slowly, relieved at the silence. You remove your hand from his mouth, and he eyes you carefully, waiting for you to talk again. You decide that you know how to make him shut up. “Kankri, or whatever your name is. You know what’s triggering?”

He stares at you in anticipation, his posture straightening more. “I do like to know peoples’ triggers beforehand. Please, enlighten me.”

Yes, this is totally going to work. You are such a fucking genius.

“Rants. Long, annoying rants. They get on my nerves, and they’re really offensive and stuff.”

Kankri is silent for a minute, lips turning into a small frown.

“…oh. If it… if that’s the way it is… I suppose I can shorten things down to the bare minimum…?” His voice is pretty hesitant, and you know he really doesn’t want to have to shorten any of his words.

“Yeah, man! Good. Thank you.” You give the most positive response you can muster, and you are pretty relieved that he’s going to lay off of the rants. “Now. I’m going to get ready and go to school. When I get back, I’m going to figure out what the _fuck_ I’m going to do with you. Got it?”

“Uh. Alright. Education is rather important, I suppose. Please, tell me that you at least have friends that are less vulgar than you are? No offense intended, of course. I’m simply asking if you have anyone around you that can possibly give you a good example of what to behave like.”

“Depends on which friend we’re talking about,” you admit, shaking your head slightly. “But I really need to go, I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Alright, alright,” he shrugs, glancing back down at the shattered vase. “I’ll clean this up while you’re gone.”

“You’d _better_.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“What’th up with _you_?” Sollux questions, raising an eyebrow. As per the norm, he has been waiting for you inside of the lobby of the school, his hands shoved in the pockets of the black sweatshirt he wore on chilly days. 

His brother, Mituna, who is only slightly older than the two of you, stands behind him. He’s playing on the Nintendo 3DS that Sollux had managed to buy for him the week before. The boy glances up at you, giving you a sharp-toothed grin. “Hullo, Karkat,” he chirps, but his attention quickly returns to the game he’s playing. You can tell he’s in an okay mood right now, which is very much preferred over his more sour moods, where it’s like the only words he knows are cuss words. He’s been pretty screwed up since his traumatic accident a few years ago, but you still remember how he was before then, and he was pretty damn badass. Even though he wanders around in some ridiculous yellow helmet with a 3D-colored visor now and yells obscenities at people, you’re alright with him.

You decide to skip the welcome and just cut to the chase.

“Sollux, the dead guy from yesterday is stalking me.”

“Wh-what?” He stammers, eyes widening behind his glasses. “Are you theriouth?”

“He’s back at my place, doing who even knows what. We can’t kill him, and we can’t let him go back to the mansion.” You’re in total panic mode right now, and you grab onto his arm pleadingly. “Sollux. Please. Take him off of my hands.”

He jerks his arm back, pushing you off of himself. “No, no no no no. I’m _not_ babythitting your pet ghotht, I have my handth full with Mituna already! Why the fuck ith he following you, anyway?”

“I don’t know! Why me? Why do I have to deal with this?” You trail off, burying your face in your hands.

“Hey… don’t worry, man…” Sollux reaches over to pat you on the back, sighing reluctantly. “Hey. We’ll look around for a plathe we can keep him, hopefully far away from uth. You jutht need to keep him at your plathe until then. Deal?”

Something calming about Sollux’s familiar stupid lisp makes you relax, and you sigh. “…I guess I can do that…”

“Heheheheh, whath thiths?” Mituna giggles, and you give him a glance. His weird speech impediments overlap into something ridiculous. He used to be pretty easy to understand before the accident when he only had a small lisp, but this is just incomprehensible. “Thisis like a _romcom_ or thomesthsing? Tho the guy and a ghosths get thrtuck in the same houthse, and then they hook up!”

“Hahahaaa, excuse me, _what_.” You hold up a hand, his suggestion being too ridiculous for you even to be embarrassed by it. “Yeah, _no_. Not going to happen. Not even in a romcom, and you know very well how much I love romcoms.”

Sollux just rolls his eyes at his brother, muttering something under his breath before speaking aloud. “I’m tho embarrathed that thomeone in my own family thaid that.”

Mituna shrugs simply. “Jutht thayin’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should never ever compliment my speed, I totally jinxed it.  
> Well, I'm back to writing this! I typed this part up in about half an hour, so it's a really short chapter just to let you know that I'm back.


	5. I'm just nobody.

_You’re about six years old, standing in the doorway to your room. You just finished getting your teeth brushed before bed, and you hold a small blanket tightly to your chest. You know you’re supposed to be sleeping, but you heard the front door open and curiosity gets the best of you._

_You tip-toe down the hallway, holding your breath as you approach the voices you can hear at the bottom of the steps. As you come closer, the voices grow louder and clearer, and you listen closely. Your child mind thinks that you are sly, akin to a fox, and you grin to yourself._

_You get on your hands and knees, your blanket still clutched tightly in one fist. You press your forehead to the bars of the railing, peering down at the three older people near the door._

_“Again, I’m sorry to bother you,” an unfamiliar voice says softly. You think it’s kind of funny, how soft his voice is. It is kind of like he’s realized something very important that he had been trying to figure out for a long, long time._

_You stare at what little of him you can see, which would include a red sweater and wavy black hair, soaking wet from the rain outside. His skin is more pale than you’ve ever seen anyone, and you wonder if he’s even breathing._

_“It’s alright, we understand that you weren’t able to make it through the storm.” This is your mother’s voice. She is soft and kind and understanding, and you love her. “You poor dear, you look so beat up. Feel free to use the shower if you need to.”_

_“I don’t want to cause any more trouble than I already have,” the sweater guy responds, shaking his head softly. Everything about him just seems so soft and raw at this moment, and he is breathing slowly, like he’s trying to not disturb the air. “You won’t need to worry about me anymore by the time the rain lets up. Thank you for letting me stay the night, Mr. and Miss…?” he trails off, not knowing what to call them yet._

_“Vantas,” she completes his sentence, nodding._

_Your father stands beside her. He is rougher and stronger than she is, but he is friendly all the same, and you think that your family is absolutely perfect. “Don’t get into anything that isn’t yours, but you can use the utilities,” he adds, an arm draped across your mother’s shoulders._

_“Thank you,” the stranger murmurs, and he turns, stepping towards the staircase._

_You give a small gasp, pulling yourself to your feet and scampering back down the hallway, blanket in tow. When you reach your room, you stand just inside of the doorway, waiting for him to walk past._

_Eventually, he does. He stops, turning his head to stare at you._

_He sort of scares you._

_Dark lines circle his half-shut and barely-seeing eyes, and his lips curving into a small smile when he notices you. The irises of his eyes are so dark that they’re almost black, and yet the whites are bloodshot and swollen._

_He’s hurt._

_There are bruises all across his face, dried blood clinging to his busted lower lip. His right cheekbone is so purple and blue and bloody that it makes you want to wince, but you don’t._

_You just stare with the curiosity of a cat, your eyes wide with awe._

_“What’s your name?” he coos in that soft voice, crouching down to your height. Despite his smile, his eyes are haunted, boring into yours, and you hesitate to answer._

_“I’m Karkat,” you reply, clutching your blanket tightly and not looking away from the older boy. You have always considered yourself to be very tough, and you aren’t going to betray it now. “Who’re you?” You let yourself ask, since you’ve already come this far anyway._

_He gives a small chuckle, mostly breath and no voice, and his tired eyes droop even more. “I’m just nobody.”_

_“Nobody?” You squint, lips pursing. “Is that your name?”_

_“It’s not important,” he whispers, leaning his head against his palm. His smile is starting to creep you out a little._

_“Why’re you all beat up, mister?” You ask, eyeing his bruises. When you look at his hands, they don’t appear much better than the rest of him. His ring finger is bent in a funny way, and you think that maybe it’s broken._

_“Things happened, that’s all. But, I don’t really want to talk about it. I stopped here because I want to ask you a question,” he murmurs, and he pays a lot of attention to your wide eyes._

_“Yeah?” You say, and you want to know what the question is._

_“Are you happy with your life, Karkat?”_

_The question takes you off guard, and you pause for a moment._

_“Of course I’m happy,” you answer, clutching your blanket to your chest. “Isn’t everyone happy with their life, because they can decide what it turns into…?” You sigh, furrowing your eyebrows. “What kind of a question is that?”_

_He gives another laugh and he stands up slowly, lightly patting the top of your head and ruffling your hair._

_“I’m jealous.”_

_With that, he gives you a small wave, and heads towards the stairs to the attic._

_“Goodbye, Karkat.”_

_And then he is gone._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Karkat Vantas!”

Your head jerks up from the table, and you frantically look around, stuttering small syllables. “Wha- euh- uhm-“

“Mister Vantas, I do believe you were supposed to be working on the assignment?” your math teacher asks, leaning over your desk to glower down at you. Her glasses balance on the tip of her sharp nose, glinting in the light from the window on your left side.

“Uh… yeah,” you mutter, picking up your pencil from the desk. It’s covered in drool, and you mentally kick yourself for falling asleep in the middle of THIS bitch’s class. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for _what_ , Vantas?” Of course. Of course, she’s going to keep this going. Teachers just _love_ humiliating you, no matter what.

“Sorry for falling asleep on my desk in the middle of class, Miss,” you mutter quietly, twirling the pencil around in your fingers as you try to pretend she isn’t there. You hear some other students giggling amongst themselves, and your face burns with embarrassment.

“Thank you. Please return to your work.” She taps a wiry finger against your paper, finally turning away and sparing you any more embarrassment.

You flip her off as soon as she turns around. No way is she going to get away that easily.

You had a dream, you think. You wrack your brain for a moment to try to remember what it was, but you can’t. Fucking bitch destroyed it. You scowl, but you brush it off. If you forgot the dream, it couldn’t have been all that important.

You shoot Sollux a look, because for you, he’s that one friend you always share glances with.

He’s not looking at you, though. He’s staring at the teacher’s desk with a horrified expression glued to his face, his glasses propped up on his forehead.

You look in the direction he’s staring in, and your eyes widen in dismay.

There he is.

Douchebag sweater in all his glory is at the teacher’s desk, staring at all of the assignments littered across the desk. It’s like he thinks _he’s_ the teacher or something.

“What the _FUCK_ , Kankri!” You scream, slamming your fists on the table and rocketing into a standing position.

You stop.

Not only is Kankri staring at you now, but so is everyone else in the entire classroom, including one _very_ angry teacher.

And of course, only you and Sollux know about the ghost’s presence.

You shrink down just a bit, slouching. “Uh… sorry…”

“Mister Karkat Vantas,” your teacher hisses, pointing at the door, red-faced. “Get out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, two chapters in one day!  
> How do I fix these repeating authors notes, aauugh. ;-;


	6. You don't want to know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bluh bluh slow update because my computer was getting repairs.  
> I'm sorry that any romantic relationships are taking a long time to develop, I just like to take things step-by-step.

“I assure you, Karkat, that I was not intending for you to get into trouble,” Kankri states, walking (floating, you suppose) beside you. His arms are crossed over his chest, posture as straight and snobby as ever. “I was growing restless of waiting inside of your home. Since you and your companion happen to be my closest attachments, I decided to see what you were up to- perhaps check on the education system while I was at it.” 

“So you decided to show up and dig through stuff that isn’t yours, right?” You snarl, your back slouched forwards and your fists clenched huffily at your sides. You wonder if it’s possible to be any more frustrated than you are right now. “I told you to stay put!” 

“Ah. Yes, and I do apologize.” He turns so he’s floating backwards, facing you with his dumb prissy expression. “However, it was your fault that you yelled so loudly.” 

“So now you’re blaming me! Get your head out of your ass, it must smell terrible up in there!” You hiss, and he looks completely offended, scowling back at you. 

“ _Mr. Vantas_.” 

You freeze, jerking your head in the direction of the voice. You feel your heart sink. 

“M-Miss Serket,” you return, your face flushing with embarrassment all over again. 

Miss Aranea Serket is the very young, newly-hired librarian at your school, and she is extremely passionate regarding her work. She has a youthful glow around her, despite her avid fascination with old-fashioned things. She tends to wear ridiculously short skirts, though she gets upset when anyone takes notice of her.

“We’ll keep your little outburst between us,” Aranea frowns, eyeing you carefully. “But you had better watch yourself. Don’t speak that way to your teachers.” 

She doesn’t wait for you to respond, and instead she jerks her thumb towards the door to the office. “You’re wanted by the school counselor. The principal is out today, so Miss Leijon has the responsibility of taking care of you.” 

You try to stutter out a response, and you’re still trying to formulate some way to tell her that you weren’t telling _her_ to get her head out of her ass, but naturally, she brushes past you before you can say anything. 

You sigh in defeat, completely and totally hopeless. “Why me.” 

“You brought this upon yourself, Karkat,” Kankri hums, staring down at you condescendingly. 

“Go fuck yourself,” you mutter quietly, pushing the office door open. 

“Y’ello, Karkat!” a familiar voice chirps, and you glance at the boy standing just inside the doorway. 

“Mituna, the fuck did you do this time?” You roll your eyes at the Captor, sighing. Mituna is better than no one, you suppose. 

“Thame ath you! Yelling at nothing in the middle of claths,” he says, and you raise an eyebrow. 

“How do you know I was yelling in the middle of class?” you grunt, eyeing him carefully. 

“Juthta hunch,” he shrugs. You can never tell where he’s looking, since his obnoxious bangs cover his eyes, and it kind of unsettles you. Glancing to your other side, you see that Kankri is staring at his own perfectly-rounded nails, like the prissy little shit that he is. Of course, he doesn’t give a fuck. 

“So!” A feminine voice begins, and you glance at the now-occupied desk in the middle of the room. “You boys have been noisy, I purred?” 

You pause, eyes narrowing and lips quirking as you try to decipher what the fuck she means. “…purred…?” 

“Heard, I meant heard!” She giggles, putting a perfectly manicured hand over her mouth. “We’ve got to be serious, you two! Stop making me laugh!” Her long, silky hair brushes against her curvaceous hips, being as insanely long as it is. 

To be honest, you can't remember her first name. She's been the school counselor for as long as you can remember, but however old she is, it doesn't show. She is the mother of both Meulin and Nepeta, though she seems to have room in her heart for all of the teens who attend your school.

You have no idea what you said that made her so amused, but you guess it doesn’t matter as long as she doesn’t get you in trouble. 

“Don’t worry; I won’t turn you in. I’m nicer than the purrincipal by a longshot! Besides, you two are pawsitively adorable little boys. But, I do wonder!” She leans closer to you, resting her head in the palm of her hand. “What were you yelling about?” 

You scoff, but you shoot Kankri a rude glance before coming up with an excuse. “I was half-asleep. Still dreaming, you know.” 

Miss Leijon nods, satisfied by your answer. “Hmm! Alright, Kar _cat_.” You feel like she exaggerated the ‘cat’ part on purrpose- you mean, purpose. God damn cat puns. Her olive-green eyes drift to Mituna, and she smiles warmly. “And you, Catpurr?” 

… _Catpurr_. You feel the sudden urge to write a novel about how much you hate this kind of thing. 

He shrugs, and it seems like that’s his answer for everything today. 

Then, he adds on to his default answer with a quirky grin, tapping his left forefinger to his temple. 

“I’m fcuckedd up in the head, Mithh Leijon!” 

There is a sudden, heavy silence. You feel a chill race up your spine. He said that so calmly, like he didn’t even care, as if it was just a fact of life. Normally, he would throw a fit if he got into trouble. You remember multiple occasions when he’s thrown things to the ground in frustration, tears of anger filling his eyes. 

The woman’s eyes are calm and calculating. She is the school counselor, after all; she must be trained to deal with emotional problems. Her smile is serene and honest, and she shoos you both towards the door. 

“Well, you boys just try to stay out of trouble! There’s only so long that I can keep the school authorities off of your case, but don’t worry, I’ll try. For now, just get to class, okay?” 

She shuts the door behind you, without letting another word pop into the conversation. 

You turn to Mituna, raising an eyebrow. It’s probably better to not say anything, but you do it anyway. “What was… that?” 

He just grins. “I neverrget blamed when I uthse that excuthe.” He puts his hands on his hips, puffing out his chest. “Pretty thmart, huh?” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me, man,” you give an amused huff, shaking your head. He's obviously not as stupid as you thought. 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“Mind telling me what the hell that wath earlier?” Sollux frowns, spinning around in his swivel chair to face you. His hands clasp to each other, and his brows rise quizzically. He’s not wearing his funky glasses anymore, but he swapped them out for wonky red and blue contacts. He has some sort of fetish for 3D things, you think. 

You flop down against his bed, wriggling out of the straps of your backpack. “I don’t even know. It’s stressing me out like fuck, though.” 

Once your backpack is discarded and thrown to the floor with the loud thump of textbooks smashing against each other, you rub your eyes and make a sort of disgruntled sound. 

“I despise myself.” 

“Hold it, cranky,” your friend sighs, and he rolls the chair closer to you. “Don’t flip out over it. It’th not your fault, it’th Kankri. Blame him if you need thomeone to point your middle finger at.” Carefully, he reaches forwards and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering for a moment. “If he dethideth to thow hith irritating grey fathe at every turn, it’th hith fault.” 

You allow yourself a tired laugh. “Your lisp makes you sound like a fucking tool,” you say, because you can never _not_ say something like that at least every day. 

“Whatever,” he says, and he rolls away from you again. 

It doesn’t take long for your eyes to drift shut, sleep beginning to take over, and you sigh contentedly against your friend’s bed sheets. 

Your eyes snap open again as you wake with a start, hearing a loud _bang_ presumably coming from the front door. You jolt into a sitting position, drawing in a deep breath and rubbing your eyes as you remember where you are, calming down. 

“Sollux, I’m goingggout!” Mituna yells cheerfully, his voice echoing down the hallway. He seems abnormally joyful this week. 

“Don’t leave without your helmet,” Sollux yells in return, and you glance at him with your sleep-fogged vision. There is a wall of red and blue code typed across his screen, and you wonder how long you were asleep for him to type all of _that_.

There is a bit of disgruntled shouting from down the hallway, and a few crashes as Mituna bumps into things while on the hunt for his helmet. Knowing him, he probably accidentally dropped it out of the window or something.

"Hey, MT! Hurry up! There's so many places to skate and so little time!" 

A female voice shouts from outside in a playful tone, and you hear the sound of squeaky wheels grinding against the cement.

"I'm hurrying-ng!" Mituna screeches, and you see him run past the doorway with a skateboard under one arm and his helmet on sideways.

"Is that his new girlfriend or something?" you yawn, stretching your arms. You find it weird to imagine him being with a girl other than the rad skater you had known in the past.

"I dunno, I'm not going to bother checking," Sollux mutters, pecking at the keyboard with a frown. "It'th hith choithe who he geth with, but I thtill don't want to thee him in a relationthip that doethn't involve Latula."

_Latula Pyrope_. You remember her.

She was Terezi's older sister, and a really fun girl to be around. Everyone adored her and gushed over the relationship she had with Mituna, since they were the perfect skater couple; hardly seen without the other.

It was a few years ago when she passed away.

You're still not clear on what happened, but from what you know, she went out with Mituna and Kurloz on some sort of 'extreme sportz outing' as they called them.

Something went seriously, irreversibly wrong.

Kurloz came staggering back home in the middle of the night with a broken Mituna and a cracked pair of Latula's red shades; carrying little story about what happened. He refused to talk about it, instead hiding away with Meulin until everyone decided that they didn't really _want_ to know what happened to his friends.

Mituna eventually recovered physically, but he was never the same psychologically, and it was pretty obvious.

"I guess I agree with you," you reply, brushing your hair away from your face. "It would be kinda painful to see him with someone else."

You get up from his bed, glancing out the window to approximate what time it is. 

"...I need to get back home before Kankri burns down the house."

Sollux sighs, waving his hand while staring at his computer screen. "Yeah, yeah. Leave the poor hacker to his codeth and go coddle the dead guy." He sighs dramatically, throwing his hands into the air.

"You'll be fine," you laugh, picking up your backpack and hurrying down the hallway while trying not to trip over the mess Mituna made.

"Well, _goodbye to you too_ , thithtain!" he shouts as you shut the front door behind you.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You turn off the TV and place the remote on the table, sighing deeply.

Nothing good is on, as usual.

It's past midnight and you should probably go to sleep, but it's a Friday so _fuck normal sleep schedules_.

You glance over at your ghost companion-of-sorts, who is perched on the windowsill. He seems to like places like that, his feet dangling over the edge, looking much like he did when you first saw him the day before. His half-lidded eyes glow brightly in the dark room, fingers clenched around the edges of his sleeves as he appears to be deep in thought.

"So..." you begin, breaking the silence that had descended upon both of you. His eyes flick up at you (or at least you think that they do), and he speaks.

"Yes, Karkat?" His voice is ice-cold, and you can practically feel the chill from where you are sitting on the couch. Once again, you are subtly reminded that this is a spirit you are dealing with. 

You've been forgetting.

Between the rants and the sassiness, it's hard for you to remember that he isn't human, nor is it safe to be so close to him unarmed.

You swallow the lump that has appeared in your throat, running your tongue over your dry lips.

"Why are you hanging around me?" you ask tentatively.

Kankri stares at you unblinkingly, still as a perfectly-crafted doll.

"Why wouldn't I?" he states, drawing his knees up to his chest and hugging them there.

"You're... you're dead. Don't you have better places to be?"

"Not really," he murmurs, nuzzling his cheek against his knee. "What more is there to do?" He chuckles dryly, giving a small smile.

"...hm," you say, crossing your arms and staring down at your feet. "...why me?"

"What?" he questions, but you don't look up at him, choosing to avoid his freezing gaze. 

"Why are you hanging around... _me_? ...there are so many other people in this town. Why are you here with me, and not with Sollux or someone else more interesting than some stupid kid who already has _enough_ problems to cope with?" Your words take on a rude edge, but that's how you always are, so there isn't anything significant about your scowling.

There is a long silence.

You glance up at your ghostly companion, finding him to be staring directly into your eyes.

"I..." he begins, gripping his knees tighter. "...this will sound... odd," he mutters, smiling wryly against his knees. "...considering how we met yesterday. It's been a long while since we first became acquainted, but I can tell... I can feel... who you are. How you are." Kankri keeps pausing, which you find unnatural for someone as talkative as he. _Kankri_ , at a loss for words? "I like you. I like being around you. You are kind and endearing. Despite everything that has happened, you are still little I-Love-My-Life Vantas from so long ago. It makes me feel as if... maybe there is good in the world somewhere."

Your brows rise as you listen to him talk. It's weird that he's fond of you, and even weirder that he suddenly seems so down-to-earth. " _I-Love-My-Life Vantas_?" You scoff, turning a bit to get a better look at him. "Where the hell did you come up with that?"

"It's fine that you don't remember," Kankri elaborates, letting his knees fall as he smiles slightly. "I don't expect you to."

"How did you die?"

You blurt out the question, and you stop immediately after it leaves your lips. Is that an okay thing to ask? It just kind of slipped out, you didn't mean to say it, but you have to admit... you are curious.

_Very_ curious.

Maybe the cause of death impacts the outcome of the ghost? You don't know, but really, that's not the first thing on your mind.

To your own surprise, you're wondering about _him_ , and not just for your own selfish benefit.

" _Karkat_ ," the ghost says firmly, strictly, almost _frighteningly_ , and you are taken aback. " _Do not ask questions you do not want to know the answer to_."

He kicks his legs off of the windowsill and lands easily on his feet, standing up and straightening his sweater.

"Goodnight, Karkat," Kankri says in a sour tone as he trudges down the hall, and you lose sight of him as the shadows swallow up the light cast by his hollow eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miss Leijon is the Disciple. Fffff, it's hard working with ancestors. Random age distribution, yay!  
> Can anyone tell what's going on with Mituna yet, or is it too subtle?  
> Anyway, I want to put in a bunch of other characters, but I'm not sure who and how. We'll just have to see how it plays out.  
> See you soon!


	7. Flip your shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very, very short chapter so I can just tell you guys that I'm back (again), and I finally know where this story is going, so updates will be much faster. I was kinda putting it off because I wasn't sure what to add next, but now I know! Hah.

It's too hot to go outside.

It's too hot to stay inside, too. The AC is a piece of blasphemous bullshit that only works when it wants to, and you aren't too keen on trying to fix it in this sweltering heatwave. You suck at fixing things, anyway.

Kankri is nowhere to be found. You should have guessed. That douche gets really touchy when it comes to subjects he doesn't like, so you guess that he's hiding somewhere, wallowing in self-pity.

It's so hot that you don't even give a damn about anyone else right now.

You called Sollux, but that pretentious fuckass didn't pick up. You assume that he's sleeping in, as he usually does on the weekends. He hardly ever sleeps during weekdays, being caught between school, coding, and the occasional ghost hunt; so he makes up for it by lazing through the rest of his time.

And so, you're outside.

You're outside because it's too hot inside and it's too hot everywhere else and you are furious at _everything_. It's not much of a difference from your normal attitude, but it's intensified by the unbearable heat.

You pop another half-melted ice cube into your mouth from the plastic bag you're carrying. Having a bag of ice isn't like ice cream or anything, but it's fine, you guess.

Your steps are slow, the insides of your shoes damp with sweat. You can't bring up the motivation to do anything. It's hard to even be angry when you feel like the sun took a shit on you.

The sound of wheels grinding against the pavement distantly reaches your ears, and you raise your head. You have neared the skate park in your mindless haze and you scowl, wondering just how stupid skaters need to be to think that going out in million degree weather was a good idea.

Well, you have a few friends that like to skate. John and Jade have roller-blades, Nepeta fancies trying out biking, and even Gamzee has a wheeled device in the form of a unicycle (though he can't quite reach the petals yet).

You sigh. Maybe they're over there somewhere, being complete idiots. At least yelling at them will help take your mind off of the heat.

Two figures come into view and you squint, trying to keep the sun from clouding your vision.

They sit in the grass beside each other, one wearing a yellow and black hoodie, obviously Mituna. However the fuck Captors manage to wear hoodies in any weather is beyond you. The girl next to him has a weird hat on backwards, partially concealing long black hair with teal highlights.

You feel a pang of recognition at the sight, breathing out in a quick huff of air. 

The girl looks identical to Latula from behind.

You frown a bit, coming to the conclusion that she must be Mituna's new girlfriend. You realize that it must be because she looks so much like his old lover that he keeps her around, and it makes you feel pretty depressed.

You figure you may as well meet her, since Sollux hasn't spoken to her yet and you know how worried he gets about his brother. You understand that he really just doesn't want to think too much about how his sibling is replacing Latula; everyone _adored_ her.

You approach, shoving your bag of ice cubes into your pocket for safe keeping. 

“Hey, you two,” is your simple greeting. You have never been very good at socializing, anyway.

Mituna recognizes your voice and turns to you, his grin widening. “Ohhey!” He pats the grass between him and the girl, inviting you to join them.

The girl finally looks up at you, a rather sharp-toothed yet warm smile lighting up her features. “'Sup?”

You feel like you have been punched in the gut.

She looks _exactly_ like Latula. You can not point out any significant differences between this girl before you and the girl you have in your memories.

The square red shades tie up the whole appearance deal.

You can't help but notice that she is really... pale.

Greyish, even.

“...hey,” the word comes out as some sort of squeak. You suddenly feel very nervous. What, is she dressed up like that because Mituna misses his old girl? Weird.

“Eeeeeeyyy, I know you, little man!” The girl gasps playfully, grabbing her glasses and pushing them up slightly to get a better look at you. 

“ _You're Karkles McGrumpypantz Vantas_!”

Her eyes are empty and white.

You basically flip your shit.


	8. Emotions are stupid as fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had writer's block and I got really mad at this chapter so it took forever aaaahhhhh sorry!!!

“I refuse to believe that this is a thing that is happening,” you wheeze, your knees curled up to your chest as you crouch on the ground in a fetal position. Most of your angry rampage has already passed, leaving you winded and still panicked to the extreme. “No, no, no, no. Ghosts don't... don't have _memories_! It doesn't work that way!”

Cold fingertips massage your shoulders in soothing circles, and you flinch at Latula's attempt to calm you. 

She shouldn't _be_ here.

“Uh, I'm... sorry?” she says, voice hesitant as she apologizes, though she's not sure what for.

“Karkat, calm your tittthhh,” Mituna frowns, still standing and watching you from underneath his unruly bangs. “You're gonna offend Tula.”

“Ha! Haa, haha!” you cough out a wry laughter, your ornery attitude showing even beneath metric tons of horror. “I'm going to offend _my best friend's brother's dead girlfriend_!”

Mituna looks very much like he is going to yell at you, but Latula shakes her head at him and he falls silent.

“Hey, MT told me that you and Sol were ghost hunters or something. I thought you'd be okay talking to me?” She speaks with a practiced softness, and you are sure her hand on your shoulder would be comforting if she weren't cold as ice. You guessed that was why she and Mituna were alright being outside in the heat- she was colder than air conditioning.

"Dude, there wath a dead guy following you around at ttttthhhhe printhipal's offithe. What'th the big deal suddenly with Latula?" Mituna says snarkily, his arms crossed tightly. 

You stare at him, incredulous. " _What_? You could _see_ him- you can see ghosts- and you didn't even tell me or Sollux?!" 

"I atthumed you knew," the older Captor scoffs, pouty like a little kid. "If you have your own ghothttt with candy-corn on their headth, why thoudn't I?" 

A sudden thought occurs to you, and your body gives a violent jerk as you stare at her with wide eyes.

“Don't tell me you...!” You reach for her hat and pull it from her head, and she raises her hands to smooth out her hair again.

Just as you thought.

Two candy-corn colored horns poke from her skull, longer and sharper than Kankri's, but of the same origin. She is the same thing as him, the same kin, the same sort of... mutation. You don't know what to call it, be it a subspecies or a deformity, it is _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

You jump to your feet, screaming in frustration and throwing the hat to the ground.

“I'm done! I'm fucking done!” You flip off no one in particular, making a show of it by getting in the angriest stance you can manage, your deep-rooted scowl curling your lips. There is hardly ever a moment when you aren't obscenely enraged, and right now, your panic is ebbing away; right back into your endless hatred.

You can't tell if it's Mituna or Latula that reaches out for you and tries to get a few words in, but you turn away before you can find out. You don't want to deal with all of this bullshit before, everything is piling up against you and you can't do it anymore.

You are _such an idiot_.

The world turns into a meaningless slurry, and for a moment, you consider going to Sollux for reassurances that you aren't going insane. He's there for you, he's always been there for you, he's- he's-

Somehow, you don't want to talk to him right how.

You had never thought it would come to something like this; he's your best friend, your closest attachment, even if you _are_ an asshole to him twenty-four seven. All you want is to be alone instead of causing any more trouble for Captor. He's going to be completely dumbstruck and probably even enraged, and you can never tell how bad it's going to be. His whole bipolar deal makes it difficult for you to predict his next move, even though you can read whatever his current emotion is, practically as easily as a book. His body language changes, mostly turning back and forth between his two most prominent stances. One is loose and friendly, back slouched into something that makes you wince just looking at it. The other is tense and can even be wild sometimes, like something's going to jump out of the fucking trees and maul him; but he always relaxes a bit when you stand close enough, like you're a magical wall of waspish guardian butterflies.

You don't want to put up with him right now, though. You don't want to put up with anyone. It's not his fault, it's your own fucking incompetence getting in your way.

Before you care to keep track of what you're doing, you're on your front porch, breathing raggedly. You automatically came back here, of course you fucking did. Where else do you have to go?

Your eyes are narrow slits, your teeth grit in an angry snarl for your attentive audience of exactly zero people. 

Fumbling with the keys hidden under the doormat, you manage to jam the right key into the lock and shoulder the door open. Carelessly, you toss the keys onto the carpet, slamming the door shut behind you.

Complete silence surrounds you, envelopes you, and you stare down at your hands. 

You just don't _understand_.

Maybe you're an idiot for not being able to just hunker down and _accept_ your total lack of knowledge, but you suppose that maybe what's eating away at your conscience is the fact that you may have been killing sentient beings all along.

“Karkat?” Kankri says, and he's suddenly there, all wide-eyes and attentive perception. Fuck, oh, fuck, you forgot he was here- how could you fucking forget something like that?

You mutter something foul under your breath, but all that comes out is a dry croak. Auugh, no, no, are those _tears_ on your face, ugh, no, this is so stupid-

“Oh, Karkat. What happened?” he asks in that smooth voice he has, softer than you've heard him speak before. You don't want to hear him speak like that, no, shutupshutupshut _up_ -

All of the bitterness he had last night was gone, replaced by a worried frown as a frigid thumb wipes away the damp feeling on one of your cheeks. He's cold, always so fucking cold, and you jerk away from his fingertips.

“Fuck, stop, I'm not a little kid,” you grunt, looking anywhere but at him. You wipe your face on your sleeve, sniffing loudly and shoving away your stupid emotions.

“Come on, Karkat,” the ghost says, and he doesn't move near you this time. You can see the hurt flicker across his face; see how much he loathes his freezing, uncomfortable touch. “Please, tell me what's bothering you.”

You feel your lower lip quiver slightly, but you fight the childish urge to cry, speaking honestly. “I'm fucking stupid.”

His frown deepens, and his hands lift slightly, brought to life with the desire to comfort you. “Oh, no. You're not stupid by any means,” he assures you, shaking his head softly. “What managed to give you that idea?”

“There are more,” you spit out, fists clenching at your sides and words coming out through clenched teeth. “More of you. Ghosts like you. With the horns- and- and, they have personalities. They're not mindless fucktards, they're real people, and I don't know- I don't know how to feel about-” Your words are lost in a wretched, gross, loathsome sob. God, you hate yourself, you shouldn't be breaking down this easily.

Everything is more of a blur than anything else, but suddenly you're gripping onto his stupid-as-hell but cozy red sweater, your face smashed against his collar because it's the warmest place.

The material is actually kind of warm compared to the rest of him, and it's almost like normal fabric. Almost. You remember that you fired a shitload of holes through it when you shot him to double-death, but they have long-since faded away into who-knows-where.

You can hear his wispy breath catch, like you've hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. His arms hover for a moment at your sides, and you can tell that friendly touch is completely foreign to him. Hell, this isn't even that friendly, it's more like you're really desperate for comfort. You'll take anyone.

Eventually, he does return the embrace, and his arms are tight and comforting. You settle against his chest, being quite a bit shorter than him, and you do not sob. You don't feel like you need to cry anymore, anyway.

He's still cold, and you shiver; but you don't pull away.

You wonder what a hug would have felt like when he was alive.

Thinking that ghosts walk through everything is just stupid. His grip is tight and solid, and despite the dumb lore that ghosts always walk through walls and shit, they rarely ever do. He is _here_ , right here, with you.

The thought is comforting.

You would have thought that he'd smell like social justice and self-righteousness, whatever that smells like, but it's more like some sickeningly-sweet and spicy mix of cherries and cinnamon. There's also a faint trace of “gross old hand-made sweater” mixed in there, but you try to ignore it. It's different than Sollux, who carries the air of too much honey-and-almond candy and almost a week of video games without showering or sleeping, in a familiar and friendly way. 

And in that moment, you can't decide which scent you like better.

Within minutes, you pull away from him with an indignant huff of breath, your tears dried and gone.

“Well,” you sniff, frowning as your cheeks redden with embarrassment. “Let's just say that never happened.”

He stares at you for a long moment, but then he smiles, all fangs and prissy attitude again. “I'll take note that being comforted triggers embarrassment for you, and I'll try to bypass it for the benefit of your somewhat _fragile_ feelings.”

“Seriously, fuck you,” you growl, but not unkindly. You don't have much more energy to be upset. You slide your hand into your pocket and retrieve your cellphone, flipping it open and then entering your friend's number easily by memory. “I'm calling Sollux, he needs to know that his brother is dating a dead chick.”

Kankri just tilts his head at you. He doesn't seem nearly as intrigued as you had expected, seeing as you have kind of just found something _really fucking important_. “Alright.”

One word. That's gotta be a new record.

“What?” Sollux's voice says through the phone, upset and exhausted. You've probably woken him up again.

“Sollux,” you begin, running a hand through your hair and sighing. “We need to talk about Mituna.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Sollux next chapter, also another important character arrives!

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway.  
> More chapters will come soon.


End file.
